Fiat justitia ruat caelum
by Diglossia
Summary: If anyone asked, Ronan was going to say it was all Noah's fault. Yes, bringing Kavinsky back to life was definitely all Noah's fault. Rovinsky, Gansey/Adam/Ronan/Noah/Blue, implied Kavinsky/Prokopenko.


The hood of the Camaro burned under Ronan's legs. His jeans provided barely any protection at all. The Mitsubishi was nowhere in sight, but Kavinsky was on top of him all the same.

The dream place rustled all around them. Ronan could barely hear their ragged breathing over the ceaseless drone of the cicadas. The Camaro broiled underneath him. Kavinsky's mouth seared against his throat; his fingers were like burning coals against Ronan's skin. Everything was on fire. The heat was going to cook him alive.

"Ronan!"

Ronan's eyes flew open. Kavinsky's teeth dragged across his Adam's apple. Ronan's eyes slid closed.

"Ronan!"

 _Someone's calling me_ , Ronan thought. Hot as it was, he didn't want this summer afternoon of a dream to end. Who knew when it would return?

He hummed softly, ignoring the voice. Reality could wait.

There were so few good dreams.

"Ronan!"

"Don't wake up," Kavinsky hissed, his nails digging into Ronan's shoulders.

Ronan did.

* * *

"Are you shitting me," Adam said.

Ronan was in fact not.

"How," Gansey asked slowly in a voice that spoke of good breeding and veiled fury, "did this happen?"

Blue simply stared. Psychic's daughter or not, this was the strangest thing she had seen in weeks. Ronan could do amazing things. He could pull items from his dreams, turn whimsy into reality. He could create cars, medicine, monstrosities. He had once even created a living, breathing, raven foundling.

As far as she knew, though, he had never done anything like this.

The dream looked like Joseph Kavinsky. He sounded like Joseph Kavinsky. He even _smelled_ like Joseph Kavinsky. Blue had seen Kavinsky enveloped in flames, yet here he was at Monmouth Manufacturing, as awful as ever.

Blue wanted to strangle someone.

"It was an accident." Ronan glared at the boy slouching next to him. "Noah was the one who woke me up."

Noah shrugged. "You were making weird noises."

Blue didn't hear Ronan's response.

"What was that?"

Ronan muttered something that sounded an awful lot like "Fucking Noah needs to keep his fucking nose in his own fucking business. Fuck, fuck, _fuck_ ". The last "fuck" was a desperate stage whisper as Ronan dragged his hands over his face. Blue almost felt bad. It's just- there was this thing. If only she could remember what it was called.

Noah's lips twitched. He looked 0% chastised by Ronan's aspersions. Ronan could say whatever he wanted. From what Blue gathered, Noah had long since earned the right to wake Ronan up whenever and however he wanted.

Adam was less amused. He flung a hand in Kavinsky's direction. "What are we going to do with _him_?"

"I'm fine with staying here." Kavinsky flashed a smile at Adam's stony face. "Aww, Parrish, it's good to see you, too."

Gansey, the skin around his eyes dangerously tight, laid a warning hand on Adam's arm.

"Oh, shit," Kavinsky said, his smile only growing wider. Blue always had the vague notion he could unhinge his jaw and swallow her whole if he really wanted. "Looks like Dicky has two dogs."

Gansey launched himself at Kavinsky. Neither Adam nor Blue did anything to stop him.

Ronan, for his part, punched a wall.

* * *

Ronan had done a lot of inadvisable things in his life, but it had been a long time since he had fucked up this much.

The thing about bringing someone back to life was you couldn't do anything with them. You keep them locked up, you're a monster. You let them out, you've unleashed one.

It was a good thing Henrietta's residents weren't particularly superstitious. It would take no time at all for people to realize unnatural things happened around Gansey and his people.

Ronan scrubbed his face with his hands.

Keep things quiet, keep them under control. That was how Gansey said they were going to deal with this. _Together, we can figure this out._

Gansey had explained to Malory that something unexpected had come up and wouldn't Malory and the Dog like to stay in one of Henrietta's lovely bed and breakfasts for the time being?

Ronan's respect for Malory increased exponentially when he politely agreed and cleared out within the day. As he left, Gansey fixed Ronan with a stare that said _you will fix this or so help me_. Because this was a thing Ronan wanted.

 _I chose you when it mattered_ , Ronan wanted to say, only the words wouldn't come out right.

Noah was being semi-helpful. He was fascinated by Kavinsky like he was by all new things and happily let him stay in his room. It wasn't long before the entirety of Monmouth was treated to the thumping bass of Bulgarian rap. Bulgarian rap that Noah apparently _liked_.

Adam was pissy. That in itself was not particularly new. Since making his deal with Cabeswater, Adam had been jumpy and irritable. This, though, was something else. Something Ronan didn't feel like thinking about.

So Adam was pissy, Gansey kept giving Ronan looks best described as _unfathomable_ , and Noah was trailing Kavinsky like a lost, little puppy. It was a great situation. Fantastic.

Blue ( _because of course they had to get Blue involved; why would they not get Blue involved? It's not like Ronan could be a gigantic fuck up without everyone knowing_ ) suggested they bring Kavinsky to her house. Ronan shot that down immediately. There was nothing to read about this latest dream of his.

His dream creatures, Calla had told him before, were parts of him, like nail clippings. No matter how separate they might seem, on some fundamental level, they were him. Psychometry and card reading would only see Ronan, not the person who was so clearly there. It would be a waste of everyone's time.

That was what he told himself. The reality? Ronan was convinced the psychics knew his second secret.

And he didn't want them to tell anyone else.

* * *

Ronan's skin itched. He hadn't slept in nearly two days, not since the morning Kavinsky appeared and things went to shit. Gansey had instituted a watch on Kavinsky, one that involved far too much Adam and Blue for Ronan's liking. There were eyes on Ronan all the time now. Everyone was aggravated, too close, and too quiet.

Ronan needed to get out.

His hand gripping the doorknob of his bedroom door, he paused. Voices. Ronan leaned his forehead against the door. He didn't like eavesdropping, but he knew when he was being talked about.

"What are we going to do?" Adam. Ronan's heart stilled. "People are going to notice-"

"I know," Gansey said. "We'll keep him here for now. After that- I don't know. We'll figure something out."

Adam took a harsh breath.

"Gansey, how could he just forgive Kavinsky after what he did?"

Gansey sighed. "I don't know. I just don't know."

 _Because he's not real_ , Ronan wanted to say. They should _know_ that. Kavinsky had come out of a dream. He was not the same person who had kidnapped Matthew and died at the hands of his own nightmare. He was the person who had lain on top of the Camaro in the summer heat and taught Ronan how to dream. All that nastiness and desolation at the end- it was as if it had never happened.

He was alive while his predecessor was dead, and Ronan couldn't say he'd just wanted to see this version of Kavinsky again. The one who'd been alive and horribly beautiful.

The one who hadn't given up just yet.

Ronan walked to the other side of the room and threw his window open. From her cage, Chainsaw gave a mournful _kraa_. She didn't want to be left behind.

"Shh," Ronan said, lifting a finger to his lips. "I'll be back."

He climbed out the window and shimmied down Monmouth's brick façade. The brick was old and weathered, pockmarked with enough hand- and footholds that Ronan wouldn't be risking too much injury if he fell. Not that he cared.

Ten feet up, he let go of the wall and dropped to the ground. The impact left a dull pain in the soles of his feet. He ignored it and walked towards the BMW. He turned back to look at Monmouth in disgust.

If he slammed the door a little too hard, good. If he peeled out of the courtyard a little too fast, even better. Let Adam and Gansey wonder whether he'd listened to their gossiping.

It wasn't like they cared enough to do it where he couldn't hear.

* * *

Gansey laid out the map of the Eastern Seaboard's potential ley lines on Malory's table. He smoothed the edges that threatened to curl, wiping eraser shavings to the floor in the process. In recent months, with Adam's and Malory's help, Gansey had adjusted several of those lines.

Malory looked dutifully interested in the map. Since he'd been forced out of Monmouth by Kavinsky's arrival, he'd taken to exploring larger swathes of the mountainous regions surrounding Henrietta. Malory wanted to find another, less dangerous entrance to the raven cave. They both did.

It shouldn't be hard. The western part of Virginia and the eastern part of West Virginia were, to put it in local terms, lousy with caves. The area was even famous for it: several large commercial caves and caverns, the type tourists flocked to, followed the western edge of the Blue Ridge Mountains. That placed them near Henrietta's ley line, but Glendower wouldn't be there. Gansey could feel it. Glendower's men had sought to hide his sleeping body. They would never have placed him somewhere easily accessible.

Malory had confirmed Gansey's earlier conjecture of a parallel ley line that passed through the heart of the Allegheny Mountains in a broad northwest-southeast stroke. This parallel ley line was part of the reason it had taken Gansey so long to find Henrietta's. Its presence skewed things, made paranormal phenomena happen hundreds of miles in the wrong direction. For instance, weeping walls.

Gansey hadn't been looking for _a_ ley line. He had been looking for the one Glendower traveled on, the one that stretched from Wales down through the Eastern U.S., the one he had tracked for years. Everything had pointed to Henrietta. And now Gansey knew he was right.

They had found Gwenllian ferch Owain Glyndŵr, Glendower's illegitimate daughter. She had been trapped centuries ago by Glendower's men in Jessie Dittley's cave. No map showed that cave or the lay of it. For generations, only the Dittleys had entered that cave and most had not returned. Gansey would have to explore on his own if he wanted to find out anything more.

Gansey's breath caught at the idea of going underground again. Cabeswater, beautiful, perfect, wonderful Cabeswater, was infinitely suggestible. It had turned his fears on him once before. Given the chance, it would almost certainly do so again.

"How long is your surprise visitor staying with us?" Malory asked.

"I don't know," Gansey answered honestly. He smoothed the edges of the map down again. His finger traced a line between Henrietta and Coopers Mountain.

"And your friend, has he done this before?"

"Ronan," Gansey reminded Malory. "No, nothing like this."

"To harness the ley line." Malory sounded wistful. "What a marvelous talent."

"I wouldn't say as much. He dreams frightful things, too," Gansey said. "Abominations of nature. His dreams have nearly killed him." He glanced at Malory. "And me. The worst ones are nigh indestructible."

"Ah, but not all of them are abominations. Did you not say your vehicle was a product of his imagination?"

Gansey had. What he hadn't mentioned was that the car had been destroyed when a creature stepped out of Ronan's nightmares and tried to kill him.

"There's a cost to using the ley line. Cabeswater disappeared because people were using it too much. If I may remind you, your colleague landed himself in the hospital over a few ill-spoken words." _Cabeswater would have let me kill myself._

"Then we need only be more careful."

Gansey swallowed. He didn't like the idea of harnessing the ley line. Ronan's dreaming had only led to trouble.

Gansey's mind raced. He wanted to believe Malory's interest was primarily scholarly, but what if it was more? Greenmantle had thought the Greywaren was an object. Men had come looking for it. They'd trashed the loft. Gansey didn't know what they would have done if someone other than the Gray Man had realized the Greywaren was a person. What if there was a chance the Greywaren had done more than simply pique Malory's interest?

What if he wanted to _use_ Ronan?

Gansey struck that thought from his mind. All this Kavinsky business had him paranoid. He had known Malory far too long to suspect the man of ill intentions. Malory was eccentric but he wasn't dangerous. He devoted himself to the study of ley lines. He was more interested in proving they were real than exploiting them.

Maybe he should show Malory Kavinsky and have Ronan explain what had happened the last time someone had overtaxed the ley line. _Here's an idiot who got himself killed because he dreamed a dragon into existence._

Malory would be fascinated right up until he realized Kavinsky could tell him nothing about the ley line. Kavinsky had been having a bit of fun. He hadn't made any scientific studies. Probably hadn't even wondered how he could do what he could. Just another Darwin Award winner in the end.

Gansey, it should be noted, had not actually witnessed Kavinsky's passing. He'd been too busy at the time trying to rescue a scared, sixteen-year-old kidnapping victim. He could, however, imagine it in vivid detail.

There was no sense in who was and wasn't given gifts in this world. Kavinsky, of all people, had been given one and all he'd done was waste his, just like he'd wasted his money, his education, and, eventually, his life.

Gansey wasn't going to let that happen to Ronan. He was going to get rid of Kavinsky, for good this time. He was going to keep the world from dragging Ronan down, even if he didn't always understand why it did. It might take forever, but one day, Gansey was going to look Ronan in the face and see the boy he used to know.

"It's up to Ronan to exercise control," he told Malory. "As you've seen, he's hardly got a handle on that."

"Surely that could be improved?" Malory asked politely. The Dog whined from the attached room. It appeared he was having trouble getting at an itchy spot on his rump. "Practice makes perfect and all that."

"The drain on the ley line would be significant," Gansey said firmly. "It would be difficult to research the ley line if it's on the fritz. We only just returned it to working order."

Malory nodded thoughtfully.

"Tell me," he said, tapping a point on the map. "What is this place?"

"Shenandoah National Park." Gansey squinted. "No, Rapidan Wildlife Management Area. It's a protected area mostly used for hunting and fishing. Did you want to explore it?"

"I think I would rather enjoy doing so. Will you be coming?"

"I have school," Gansey reminded him. The tight knot inside him was unwinding. Malory was only curious. He didn't mean any harm, asking questions like that. Talking about Ronan like that. He was only curious.

"Another time perhaps," Malory said, turning away.

* * *

On Friday, two days after he appeared, Kavinsky vanished. He swiped the keys to Ronan's BMW and was gone before anyone noticed.

Ronan blamed Noah. Gansey blamed Ronan.

Ronan skipped school that day. People would notice if Gansey was gone, Ronan not so much.

He paced the apartment and waited on the oft hope Kavinsky would return. There was no one he could call. Adam, Gansey, and Blue were in class. The police would never believe him.

Noah had always been good at finding things, but even he had no idea where Kavinsky was.

"Henrietta," he told Ronan when asked. "Or Deering. Definitely Virginia."

Sometime soon, Noah was getting tossed out a window.

For now, Ronan paced.

Around three o'clock, Kavinsky strolled back in with a backpack slung over his shoulder and a pair of white sunglasses he wasn't wearing when he left.

"Didn't take you for grand theft larceny, K."

Kavinsky grinned cockily. "Didn't have much of a choice, _Lynch_." He tossed the shades onto Gansey's mattress and leaned against the metal frame. "Or are you mad I took your ride and not Dick's? Though, I've got to say, Parrish has both of you beat. What is that shitpile he's hauling around?"

Ronan laughed. "I don't know, man."

Relief was surging through his chest and he had no idea why. No one would believe Kavinsky was walking and talking, or driving anyone's car. He was six feet under in a plot in the upscale section of Deering because Henrietta hadn't been good enough.

Still, he'd been afraid.

"I got something for you," Kavinsky said. He pulled something out of the half-zipped backpack and tossed it to Ronan. A baggie filled with green pills. Ronan hefted it in his hand. There were a few red pills buried under all the green.

Kavinsky had gone home. That was the only explanation. The mansion he used to live in was clear across town. Kavinsky wasn't the type to walk.

"Might come in handy. You never know."

"Yeah," Ronan said. "You never know."

* * *

On Sunday, Ronan went to church. He did this partially out of habit, partially out of fear, and partially because St. Agnes was as familiar and reassuring as anything in his life. He already believed in the worst of this world, but knowing the church was someplace he belonged was a comfort in itself.

He was, of course, late. Habit and comfort were nothing if you felt the need to show up on time. Some of the more observant churchgoers glared at him as he entered. _Nihil sub sole novum._ Ronan dipped his hands in the holy water, touched his forehead, crossed himself, and slid into a pew with Declan on one side and Matthew on the other.

He did not tell them about Kavinsky. He sat quietly through the opening hymn and readings, gnawed the side of his thumb during the homily, and accepted communion absently. He trailed after his brothers following the last hymn, listening to Matthew's chatter and ignoring Declan.

Ronan didn't hang around to see if the blonde waiting for Declan was Ashley or someone new. He made excuses when Matthew asked to get lunch together. He sneered at the little old ladies and their disapproving looks. Then he got in his car and drove away, eyes flicking only once to the Hondayota parked on the side.

* * *

Kavinsky was waiting in the doorway of Monmouth's first floor when Ronan returned. He sauntered out, looking either immensely bored or immensely stoned, and walked up to the BMW. Ronan rolled the window down. A wall of hot air threatened to enter the body of the car.

"Hey, good-looking," Kavinsky drawled, leaning over the BMW's driver side window. "Going somewhere?"

"I might be," Ronan quipped. "Where you headed?"

"Anywhere but here."

Ronan raised an eyebrow.

"I'm serious, man. Get me out of here," Kavinsky said.

Ronan's eyes flicked around Monmouth's empty lot. The Camaro was gone. Gansey would never know.

"Get in."

* * *

It was inevitable they would find their way here. That was what Ronan told himself as he nudged the BMW up to the red light. He didn't believe it for a second.

It felt so right having Kavinsky riding with him. Ronan hadn't raced in months, not since he'd destroyed Gansey's Camaro and brought it back to life.

But this, the BMW thrumming beneath him and Kavinsky in the seat beside him felt deliciously illicit. Ronan had missed this. The thrill of sleek, gorgeous machines duking it out, pushing the limits of what they had been made to do, speed the only arbiter.

Speed and basic driving sense.

Ronan knew Henrietta's roads. For the most part, they twisted and turned, following the rolling hills. You didn't barrel down them unless you had them mapped out in your head, like Ronan did. Ronan could drive these roads blindfolded

There wasn't much fun, though, in banking around hairpin turns or taking easy curves that ate away at a car's speed and a driver's control. That left only a few stretches of main roads for Henrietta's cops to patrol, which they did with a passion. They loved catching Aglionby boys.

They wouldn't be bagging one tonight. Ronan had chosen his battle right. A half mile stretch of River Road, four lanes, perfectly straight. Too short to be popular but long enough for a full race.

"Get on with it," Kavinsky said, yawning. His gaunt face was a ghoul's mask under the streetlights.

Ronan gestured to the empty street. "Do you see anyone?"

Kavinsky rolled his eyes. "I don't know if you know this, Lynch, but there's more than one intersection in this godforsaken town."

And there it was. A Scion FR-S, red with black, oversized rims and a matching rear spoiler, stuffed to the gills with idiotic teenagers. The driver was no one Ronan knew. He was decked out in Washington and Lee apparel, a camo baseball cap adorning his ugly skull.

Ronan rolled his passenger side window down. He revved the engine.

The driver looked straight ahead. Instinctively, Ronan knew he was game. The driver adjusted his grip on the wheel. His friends hooted in the background.

The light on the opposing street turned yellow. One second.

When was the last time Ronan had felt this much joy? His foot slid down the clutch.

The light turned green.

The Scion's tires shrieked as it burst from the line, the BMW right behind it.

"Pathetic," Kavinsky mouthed, the stereo eating his words. He meant Ronan.

But Ronan knew the road. Two hundred horsepower had nothing on the BMW. He could outstrip the Scion in two seconds flat. But the Scion would have him at the turns if he pulled ahead. Ronan was counting on these boys being out-of-towners who wouldn't realize speed was not the answer to this race.

They kept pace with the Scion. Kavinsky eyed the gearshift, ready to grab it if Ronan didn't make use of the machinery at his disposal.

Ronan would never let Kavinsky touch that gearshift.

They were nearly nose to nose now.

And there it was, the curve so sudden and unavoidable, the road dipping twenty feet and curving to the left, a nasty surprise to the unwary. There were no chevrons or streetlights to ease the shock, only the lines on the road and a guardrail glinting off headlights.

Ronan knew it. Ronan saw it.

Washington & Lee did not.

Kavinsky was spouting obscenities, his skinny frame hanging halfway out the window. Ronan grabbed the back of his tank top and hung on as they rounded the curve. He took the inside lane. The Scion squealed as the driver broke to avoid the guardrail. Ronan hugged the inside and sped off, Kavinsky's delighted laughter and raised middle finger signaling their victory.

* * *

"Where have you been?" Adam demanded the minute they returned to Monmouth.

"Aww, did you miss me, Parrish?" Kavinsky asked.

Adam very carefully closed his eyes and didn't reply.

"Out," Ronan said. "Why?"

"Something happened," Gansey said, trying to act like he wasn't watching Kavinsky the way you'd watch a possum crossing your yard at night. Adam was suddenly glad he didn't call Monmouth home. It seemed like a very unpleasant place these days.

"Blue's coming over." Noah sounded downright gleeful. He'd been enjoying this misadventure far too much from the start.

Gansey stepped in front of Ronan and looked him hard in the eye. "You can't just take him outside, Ronan. People will-"

"People will what? See him? Who the fuck's going to believe a corpse is riding around Henrietta in my car?"

"People are watching us," Gansey snarled, shoving a finger into Ronan's chest. "Dangerous people. Or have you forgotten?"

Ronan snorted. "Didn't realize I was talking to Declan. You can't keep people locked up, Gansey."

"You can when they aren't people!"

Time, as it did in all tense situations, stopped. For a moment, the whole world was Ronan versus Gansey.

Then it broke.

"Fuck," Ronan said. "You."

Gansey continued to glare at Ronan. The wire-rimmed glasses were less than intimidating.

"Ooh, are Mommy and Daddy having a domestic?" Kavinsky asked. Chainsaw, perched on his left shoulder, snapped her beak and began rooting through his hair.

"Shut up," Adam snarled.

"Touchy subject, Parrish?"

"I said, shut _up_."

"I would like," Gansey said, his voice rising loud enough that Adam couldn't block it out. "For that filthy little pustule to return from whence he came!"

"Right here," Kavinsky called, utterly unconcerned by Gansey's words.

"'Whence'?" Noah mouthed to Ronan.

Blue, who had walked in in time to hear all of this, cleared her throat.

"Gwenllian wants to meet him." Even as she said this, Blue looked conflicted. That was not a good sign. She lived with the deranged woman. If she wasn't in favor of the idea, it couldn't be a very good one.

"Why?"

"How should I know? She and Orla were getting into it all night because Gwenllian won't shut up when Orla's on the phone-" She gave them all a look that said, "Fourteenth century cave ladies, am I right?", "-then this morning she started wailing about the 'Slav'. I figured she meant him."

"She could have meant Noah," Gansey mused.

If Adam weren't dancing on the knife's edge himself, he would have found it troubling how quickly Gansey concealed his fury.

"You're Slavic?" Ronan asked, turning to look at Noah.

One of Noah's shoulders moved in a semblance of a shrug. "Barely."

Blue huffed. "Yeah, I'm going to go with the guy whose dad is a Bulgarian mobster."

Kavinsky had been quiet throughout all of this. He stroked Chainsaw's glossy, blue-black feathers, looking for all the world the Eastern European movie villain he wasn't. All he was missing was the tracksuit. Adam fucking hated him.

He hated that Noah had given up his room for him almost as much as he hated that Kavinsky had migrated to Ronan's. He hated Kavinsky's smug, bony face and his stupid, gelled hair. He hated that Kavinsky was Aglionby foreign to the core, that he was at Monmouth, that he fit in with Noah and Ronan so much better than Adam ever could, that he was alive when all Adam wanted was for him to be dead, dead, dead.

But perhaps what he hated most of all was the knowledge that Ronan dreamt about Kavinsky. Because how couldn't they have known what seemed so obvious now, that Kavinsky and Ronan had had a Thing.

They had a Thing when Ronan helped Adam get the apartment at St. Agnes and they had a Thing when Ronan got his rent lowered. Which meant Adam was not, had never been, special.

It was a thought Adam didn't want or need, any more than the shitty feeling that went with it.

Now there was an unending loop in his head, showing up every time Kavinsky did. _You're not special, Adam. You're not the only one Ronan wants. He wants terrible, spiky-haired cokeheads, too._

 _What a prize that makes you._

* * *

300 Fox Way had become a somewhat somber place with Maura gone. Months had passed since anyone had heard from Blue's mother. The hole she had left behind showed up everywhere: the dreary clutter, the hollow ring of voices. Even Calla seemed withdrawn.

"What did you do this time, Snake?" she asked Ronan. A gifted psychic, her question was more rhetorical than anything else. She narrowed her eyes at Kavinsky. "So you're what the witch was warbling about."

"Do you know where she is?" Blue asked.

Calla flapped a hand towards the stairs. "In the attic, most likely. She's been quiet today."

They climbed the stairs, Blue going first. Adam wasn't too keen on seeing Gwenllian again. Since they had freed her from her living tomb, Gwenllian had remained a vague, unnerving character. The psychics called her a witch. In truth, she was more a fabled, mad soothsayer.

One who apparently was going to help them get rid of Kavinsky.

Five minutes had passed since they arrived and Gwenllian was still showing dreamt Kavinsky the whites of her eyes. It was possible she was trying to stare him down. It was also possible the amount of air freshener Jimi had used to mask the lingering smell of asafetida had gone to her already tortured head.

"Was there something you wanted to tell us?" Blue hedged nervously.

Kavinsky was unperturbed by Gwenllian's staring. A wide, provocative smile gracing his lips, he had one hand propping up his chin and his elbow resting on the table. In contrast to the white all around Gwenllian's, Kavinsky's eyes were black, pupils blown so wide his irises were all but gone.

Adam was quick to notice Gwenllian abstained from calling Kavinsky names, although it was possible that was because he was dreamt and not truly real.

"I expected another," Gwenllian announced, trilling the last word. She stood to her full, impressive height and turned to look at the rest of their little group. "This is a most strange predicament." She bared her teeth. It might have been a smile.

"You wanted to see Noah?" Blue asked dubiously.

Adam didn't look forward to that meeting. Noah wouldn't enter 300 Fox Way, and no one wanted Gwenllian to leave it. She was better off away from average mortals.

Gwenllian whipped her head in Blue's direction. "Him?" she cried. "I have no use for shades."

She paused, deciding something.

"It is no matter," she said at last. Then she sang a song about disembowelment.

Adam grimaced.

"Why are we here?" he asked Gansey in an undertone. "It doesn't look like she's going to help us."

Gansey looked a little queasy from the disemboweling song. "I think," he said slowly in a voice meant only for Adam, "we can persuade her. She used to be quite agreeable. As Lewys Glyn Cothi once wrote, _Y wraig a oedd aur ei gwallt/0 ryw hyddod y Rhuddod/Llawen fu Wenllian ver_ -"

Gwenllian shrieked and whirled on them. She slammed her hands down in front of Gansey and breathed into his face like a wild beast.

"Do not recite that foul poetry! You speak of that man as though he knew anything, as if he ever saw my face! My hair, does it seem gold to you? Joyful! What knew he of my joy?!"

Gansey looked stunned. Ronan bit back a laugh.

"I will answer your question, princeling, but not for your sake. I have no love for your sort. Men! They want nothing but to use you." She leaned back, out of Gansey's face. Had he a lesser upbringing, he would have sagged in relief. "There is an answer to your quandary."

She stopped there.

"And it is?" Blue prompted when she did not go on. Gwenllian had drifted to the other side of the room. She looked back, surprised they were still there.

"Your Cabeswater will do it," she said. "But only if he asks." And she pointed, not to Ronan, but to Adam.

A hush fell over the room. Everyone turned to look at Adam.

If he asked? What did that mean? Adam didn't know what to ask, let alone how. The tarot deck was the closest he had come to communicating without being in active danger. Cabeswater didn't listen to him; it tried to control him.

"Do what?" Ronan demanded but Gwenllian offered no further explanation.

Adam needed none. Cabeswater would take the dreamt Kavinsky away, if only Adam could figure out how to ask.

* * *

Kavinsky barged into Ronan's room with no pretense of knocking. He would have succeeded in slamming the door against the wall if it weren't for the pile of dirty clothes behind it.

"You wanna tell your creepy friend to stop staring at me?" he groaned, flopping back onto Ronan's bed. Ronan pulled one of his headphones out and raised an eyebrow. "He's freaking me out."

"He's dead."

"Great. I know when someone's watching me, man."

Chainsaw croaked.

"Tell him to stop if it bothers you."

"I did. He fucked off somewhere but I can still feel his eyes on me."

Ronan didn't answer. He stroked a finger over the feathers on Chainsaw's back. Noah's creepiness never bothered him.

"Hey."

"Hey, Lynch."

" _Lynch_."

"Ronan."

"Come on, man."

"What?" Ronan snapped.

"You wanna fuck?" Kavinsky grinned at Ronan. Everything about him was lewd. He was pale as a cadaver and he had the cheeks of a famine victim. He was a dream, and Ronan wanted nothing else.

An ethics committee would have a field day with this.

"I dreamt you," Ronan said. A warning with no bite.

Kavinsky snorted. "It's family tradition. Gotta give your dad props: it's the most Inventive masturbation I've ever heard. Your mom was literally a sex doll."

Ronan grabbed him by the throat.

"Don't," he growled. "Talk about my mother like that."

Kavinsky smiled, wide and suggestive. Fearless. Beautiful.

Ronan released his hold. Kavinsky lunged forward and kissed him.

Ronan didn't have much experience in kissing, but he had dreamt about this enough times. He opened his mouth when Kavinsky urged, tilting his chin up and pressing his tongue inside. Ronan grew dizzy as he forgot to breathe.

Kavinsky pushed him off. He reached down and unbuckled his belt, then yanked his jeans down. His cock strained against the confines of his boxers. Ronan drank in the sight.

"You gonna keep staring or you gonna do something about it?" Kavinsky asked.

Ronan wasn't too proud to suck cock.

He lowered himself to his knees in front of Kavinsky.

"Pull 'em down."

The boxers came down easily.

Ronan had nothing to compare it to, other than himself and maybe Gansey, if one or two glimpses six months ago counted, but it was an objectively nice cock. Pale, veiny, at least as big as Ronan's.

 _Don't tell me you don't swing that way._

Ronan most definitely swung that way. He leaned forward and opened his mouth.

The weight was a surprise, as was the size.

Kavinsky grabbed the back of Ronan's head and jerked his hips, shoving his cock further down Ronan's throat. Face-fucking, that was what this was called. Ronan's lips spread too far. His jaw ached. His throat was being fucked raw. It was brutal and it was perfect.

Kavinsky's smile fell away as pleasure overtook it. His rhythm became jerky, a little off-tempo.

His short, blunt nails dug into Ronan's scalp as he came. Ronan's lip curled but Kavinsky kept him in place until he was done.

"Fuck," Kavinsky said, finally letting go.

Ronan wiped his mouth on the back of his hand. A pink streak decorated it. He wiped it on the bedspread. His throat hurt like a bitch.

"You want me to take care of that?" Kavinsky asked, gesturing to Ronan's still hard cock. Despite his words, he flopped down on the bed.

"Sure."

* * *

Ronan wanted to trace his fingers feather-light along Kavinsky's gaunt face, across his prominent ribs, maybe dip lower if Kavinsky let him. He wanted to touch so bad. In the half-light of a star-filled night, it was so easy to forget this Kavinsky wasn't the dreamer he had known but a dream.

"Stop being pervy, you fuck," Kavinsky mumbled, barely opening his heavily lidded eyes. He looked stoned, strung out. It almost hurt how much he looked like… Ronan let that thought go. "If you want to do something, do it."

"Romance is dead."

"Chivalry."

"You think I'm chivalrous?"

Kavinsky made a rude noise. "You start being chivalrous, I'm leaving."

"I'd like to see you try. You take two steps out of here, Gansey's going to have your hide."

Kavinsky sat up. "What _would_ your precious Gansey say if he saw you now?" He traced a finger along Ronan's jaw.

"I don't want to talk about Gansey," Ronan growled.

A peal of laughter ripped from Kavinsky's mouth.

"Then don't bring him up."

There was something indulgent in the way he said it, an unexpected benevolence, like this Kavinsky and Gansey could exist in the same world in a way the other one couldn't. Before, there had been no choice. It was Kavinsky or Gansey, the worst parts of Ronan and the best. It was either/or and Ronan had made his choice.

Still- maybe these two could coexist. Maybe they didn't have to find a way to get rid of Kavinsky.

It was an idle hope and, Ronan knew, an impossible one.

But wasn't he the one who could do impossible things?

* * *

"What are you looking for?"

Kavinsky jumped and spun around to face Noah. "Fuck! I knew you were watching me, you creepy bastard."

The words slid right off Noah. He watched everyone. It wasn't his fault Kavinsky was the most interesting thing right now.

"What are you looking for?" Noah asked, concentrating on staying visible. Kavinsky was exactly the sort of person who couldn't normally see him. People saw what they wanted to see, and very few people wanted to see ghosts. "I could help."

Kavinsky studied him for a moment. Noah would really like to know what Ronan saw in this guy, if it was the same thing Noah did.

"Lynch said something about his old man being like us." Kavinsky lifted his chin in Noah's direction. Noah struggled to remember what that movement meant. "You know anything about that?"

"Ronan's dad is dead."

Kavinsky looked unimpressed. "And you can't talk to him and shit? Do some dead people hoodoo?"

Noah shook his head.

"Then you're no help to me."

Kavinsky pushed past him and out of Ronan's room.

Noah noticed Kavinsky didn't say what he was looking for. The problem with Aglionby boys was, no matter how stupid you thought they were, they always had a glimmer of intelligence. Kavinsky, the real one, had far more than that. This copy of him Ronan had dreamt was no different. Even if Gansey and Adam hadn't asked him to, Noah would have kept his eye on him.

Dreams, it turned out, could have secrets, too.

* * *

Saturday morning, in those magical hours when Gansey's and Ronan's sleep schedules aligned, Kavinsky disappeared for a second time. He swiped the keys to the BMW and headed out without anyone stopping him.

They should have known Kavinsky wouldn't be satisfied being kept inside. He was a creature of senseless action, a vacuum for the coarsest of pleasures. Russian dash cam videos and Gansey-baiting could only keep him amused for so long.

It took Ronan two hours to realize he was missing.

"Noah!" Ronan bellowed. "Where are you? Noah!"

"I'm right here." Noah appeared, slouching and grubby.

Ronan flipped him off. It was a vicious wrist movement, ending with one long finger in Noah's face.

"Where's my car?" Ronan demanded.

"It's not outside?" Noah asked innocently, sounding disinterested.

"You know damn well it's not outside. Should I call the police or you gonna tell me who took it?" Ronan wasn't actually that mad. Noah had a terrible track record of stopping carjacking but still. A very well known, very dead person just stole a car. A heads up from the insomnia king would be nice.

"We all know who took it."

Ronan tensed at the tightness in Gansey's voice. The worst thing anyone could receive from Gansey was not anger or malice but disappointment. Gansey brought the best out of people or he tried to, at least. There was only so far some people could go. Those people who couldn't go farther or failed Gansey in some way had to bear the agonizing burden of his disappointment.

Ronan's list of inadvisable things would be much longer were it not for that disappointment.

Gansey did not look pleased to be awoken by the sounds of yet another crisis. He rolled out of bed, put on his glasses, and began getting dressed, assessing the situation before he was fully awake. When he stood up, he looked disgruntledly genteel.

"How could this happen?" Gansey asked Noah with a voice like magnolia-wrapped steel. "Where were you and why, may I ask, didn't you stop him?"

"You could get mad at me for letting him go," Noah said in an uncharacteristic show of bravery, "or you could ask me where he's gone."

* * *

"I don't want to come," Noah whined from the backseat. "I don't like hospitals."

"Tough shit," Ronan said.

Noah made a rude gesture.

Ronan sneered into the overhead mirror.

Gansey did not come to Noah's defense nor did he chastise Ronan. He agreed with him. Noah did nothing to prevent this so Noah could help fix this. If he really wanted not to come, he could disappear. Since he hadn't, Gansey figured he was getting some warped enjoyment from all this.

Gansey, to be quite honest, was rather perturbed by the whole situation. He'd thought Ronan had put Kavinsky behind him. Sure, he'd skipped the funeral and gone to visit the grave a few times, had a little too much to drink a few too many times, but that was typical Ronan. It had been months since anyone had mentioned Kavinsky. Aglionby and Henrietta had chalked Kavinsky's demise up to an ill-fated experiment with illegal fireworks. No one had mourned too hard, least of all Gansey.

Then, a week ago, Noah slunk out of Ronan's room at three a.m., looking guilty as anything, and fidgeted until Gansey noticed him. Gansey had been in the process of adding an expansion to a cardboard corner store. Since Noah hadn't said anything, he continued his adjustments on the new wall.

"Um," Noah said.

Ronan's door flew open.

"Gansey boy!" a shirtless, _not dead_ Joseph Kavinsky greeted him.

Gansey whirled on Ronan, who had vacated his room as well. He actually looked rather shell-shocked.

"What did you do?" Gansey snapped.

"I'm going to call Adam," Noah mumbled, edging away from the excitement.

"Don't," Ronan rasped.

"Ronan," Gansey said, deadly serious. "What. Did. You. _Do_."

That was when Noah and Ronan started pointing fingers at each other. Gansey's head started to hurt, while the last person he had ever wanted to see again beamed the oiliest smile imaginable.

Now Richard Campbell Gansey III was stuck driving down 64 because of that smug slimeball and he didn't even know why. Noah, who had been relatively quiet other than the occasional whining about how much he hated hospitals, could only tell them where Kavinsky had gone, not why.

Not that Gansey was blaming _Noah_ for this disaster of a week. Noah wasn't the one who could dream people into existence or the one who had so recently insisted his powers had to be used cautiously so as not to weaken the ley line. Noah wasn't the one who could control his dreams and yet still dreamt aggravatingly life-like versions of shitheads nobody liked. No, that was all Ronan. Ronan, who Gansey was afraid, had actually _liked_ Kavinsky. Maybe even actually _missed_ him, something Kavinsky's own coked-out mother hadn't the capacity for.

Gansey hoped the Pig broke down. He hoped it broke down fifty miles from Richmond and fifty miles from Henrietta, far enough from anything that Adam couldn't help and a tow truck would take forever. He hoped Kavinsky had been trying to confuse his tracks and there'd be no one there when they reached VCU. Most of all he hoped Kavinsky vanished into the ether never to be heard from again.

Christ, he hated that guy.

Gansey hated this Kavinsky even more than he hated the last one. There was no other way to explain it: this Kavinsky owned a piece of Ronan in a way the other one never did.

He could feel Ronan slipping away, becoming more entranced with this Kavinsky. Gansey wanted it to stop. He wanted Ronan to come back, wanted Ronan-

He really did want Ronan to belong to him, didn't he? Ronan said they were brothers but Gansey had never had one and Ronan abhorred Declan. Gansey's hands clenched on the steering wheel.

He avoided Noah's too perceptive eyes. There was another source of guilt. How long had Noah known exactly who Gansey was? The ley line had decided Gansey's potential was worth more than Noah's life. That didn't make it okay. It had taken Gansey eighteen months to realize the truth and, by virtue of that truth, the debt he owed.

Gansey pulled into the parking garage outside VCU's Critical Care Hospital, a massive, orange-red brick complex. The sun glittered off its windows. It must be ninety degrees out, a hundred on the concrete in the sun.

Noah was cowering in the backseat. Gansey wished Adam was there. As quickly as he thought it, he changed his mind. Adam had not liked Kavinsky any more than he had; this new, back-from-the-dead Kavinsky even less. At least Noah and Ronan had come to the consensus that Kavinsky was something to be dealt with. Adam would be happy sending the Gray Man after him. Probably. Adam had changed so much over the last few months, Gansey wasn't sure what he'd do anymore.

His head was starting to hurt again.

After finally finding a place to park and turning the Pig's restless engine off, Gansey turned to Ronan.

"This is all you."

Ronan scowled.

"How am I going to find him? This place is huge."

"Why, with our handy-dandy bloodhound."

Gansey and Ronan both turned to look at Noah, whose eyes had gone comically wide.

Ronan grinned shark-like and not at all kind.

"Be a good boy, Noah, and find Kavinsky for us."

"I'm not a dog," Noah whined as he unbuckled his seatbelt.

"No, but you are good at finding people. And I want my car back."

Noah's and Ronan's eyes met. Their gazes held for a long moment before Noah looked away. He huffed before vanishing.

Ten seconds later, he was back.

"He's on the eleventh floor in the Neuroscience ICU." Noah wrapped his arms around himself and shuddered. "Your car is on the level below us. We passed it driving up." He grinned. It came out more shaky than triumphant.

"Your move, Ronan." There was nothing that could make Gansey get out of the Pig at that moment. Kavinsky could have found Glendower moldering away in that ICU and Gansey would have stayed right where he was. Kavinsky was one person who should have stayed dead.

Ronan blew him a kiss before slamming the passenger door shut.

* * *

The antiseptic smell of the hospital, layered on top of so many smells of sickness and death, lay heavy in Ronan's nostrils. He grit his teeth to ward off unwelcome memories, earning concerned glances from the hospital staff. Ronan ignored them and punched the elevator button. Thankfully, no one joined him on the ride up.

It wasn't hard to find Kavinsky, though the receptionist looked surprised to see Ronan. There hadn't been many visitors to this patient in weeks.

Ronan hesitated in the doorway. He didn't have to look at the figure on the bed to know the diagnosis: a deep, incurable sleep. A coma straight out of a fairytale.

"Did you know this would happen?" Kavinsky asked derisively. He had a chair pulled up to Prokopenko's bedside and was gazing down at him, a story tale prince who'd just realized this was one princess who wouldn't wake. "Because I fucking didn't."

Ronan fingered his armbands.

"Not until a while ago. My mother—she's like Prokopenko. After my dad died, she fell asleep. He didn't want us to know, so he made my brothers and me stay away. I've gone back home since. Everything he created was asleep, not just her. There are cows that haven't moved from the same spot in years."

Kavinsky, his fingers templed at his chin, stared at Prokopenko's sleeping face.

"Well, this is fucking weird," he said. "I never bothered to think what would happen to him if I was gone."

"My dad didn't, either."

"No shit." Ronan couldn't tell whether Kavinsky was being sarcastic or not. This undead, dream Kavinsky was far more confusing than the real one ever was. Or maybe Ronan was paying more attention now.

"He really was my favorite," Kavinsky said quietly, almost musing. "Just like I dreamt him."

Ronan thought about Prokopenko's skewed shoulders and lantern ears. "You couldn't've made him a little better looking?"

Kavinsky's glare was swift and vicious. "Couldn't have made your brother a little smarter?"

Ronan sucked a long, harsh breath through his nose and let it out excruciatingly slowly through his teeth. "I was three when I made him."

"It shows."

"Fuck you, K."

Ronan felt no guilt over Prokopenko. He could have warned Kavinsky, if he'd believed him. Who would have believed him, though? Prokopenko was a deceptively organic creature, too ugly and flawed to be anyone's proud creation. Not like Matthew, who was sweet and kind and none too bright.

"He's exactly like I dreamt him," Kavinsky murmured in a voice almost too quiet to hear.

Ronan wouldn't have believed it a few months ago, not when all he had to compare was his own mother. A kind, beautiful woman. The kind of person too perfect to believe.

Kavinsky had been known for his attention to detail. Ronan would have expected the person he pulled out of a dream to be perfect, not this. Not a real human being.

He didn't want to admit that maybe Kavinsky had been the better dreamer.

Kavinsky flashed him a grin, knocking his shades down over his eyes. "Gansey come with you to take me home?"

"You're the one who took my car."

"That'd be a yes." Kavinsky turned back to Prokopenko. He lifted his shades back up and settled them on his spiked hair. He reached a hand out, touching Prokopenko's cheek in a gesture unnatural to him. It was almost tender.

"What was he to you? I always thought he was your little sidekick."

"You saying a bitch doesn't recognize his own kind?" Kavinsky's words had no bite. "You don't want me to answer that, man." He was still watching Prokopenko. All Ronan could think about was the strange pride he'd always felt around Matthew, the way his brother's golden curls and cheerful smile made being near Declan okay.

Kavinsky was right: Ronan didn't want to know. He didn't want to know how old Prokopenko was or why Kavinsky had dreamt him, if he was supposed to look the way he did, if he really was a forgery as opposed to a dream.

Kavinsky sighed and rubbed his face.

"A friend. The first one I made here."

The answer sounded false, too casual and too simple to describe the partnership Ronan had known.

"What?"

"You asked what Proko was. He was my friend. That's who I dreamt him to be." Kavinsky shrugged. "That's who he was."

"I never knew you had such shitty taste."

Kavinsky didn't answer. He ran a hand down Prokopenko's sunken chest, seeing something other than the repulsive creature Ronan did.

Ronan's phone rang. He let it.

Kavinsky should tell him to leave. Ronan was obviously not meant to see this. Ronan would never have shown Kavinsky Aurora before she woke up. Not that he'd show him now. Or would he? Ronan didn't know what to do with this dream.

"What do I have to do for you to take him to Cabeswater?"

"How do you know about Cabeswater?"

Kavinsky rolled his eyes. "Duh, I'm your shitty dream. I know what you know."

That made no sense to Ronan.

Kavinsky snapped his fingers in Ronan's face. "Hey, Lynch. I asked you a question. What do I have to do for you to get him out of here?"

* * *

"He is _not_ going in the Pig," Gansey said. He stood on the sidewalk in front of the Camaro, arms crossed over his chest. Noah was shiftless and ephemeral next to him.

"You couldn't have told me that before I asked you to bring the car around?" Ronan snarled. Anger simmered under his skin. He didn't want this, either.

In Gansey's eyes shone a patrician warning: _not here, not now_.

Ronan handed Noah his keys and made him go get the BMW.

"I don't see why you couldn't leave things as they were," Gansey hissed into Ronan's ear as they loaded Prokopenko into the BMW. He shot a frostily polite scowl in Kavinsky's direction. Kavinsky, who stood unhelpfully by the vacant hospital wheelchair, remained unaffected. "When are you going to get rid of _him_?"

"The question isn't when," Ronan retorted. "It's how. We can't exactly kill him."

"I mean, we could. I hear Blue's mother is dating a hitman."

Ronan narrowed his eyes at Gansey.

"You don't want that kind of blood on your hands," he said.

"What do you propose we do with Prokopenko then? He's not coming to Monmouth. _One_ of them is enough."

Ronan sucked in a breath. "Kavinsky wants to take him to Cabeswater."

"No." Gansey loathed the idea of taking Prokopenko to Cabeswater, Ronan could tell. Like everything else in his life, he'd laid an unshakeable claim to the place from the moment he first stood there. By right, Noah or Ronan or Adam most of all had a better claim, but none of them would argue with Gansey about it. His hold on them was much stronger than any claim of primacy could be. "What could that possibly do?"

"He wants to see if he can wake Prokopenko up."

"Are you saying he's-"

"Yeah. I thought you knew that?" Ronan had given up being surprised by the things that escaped Gansey's notice. "Look, maybe if we figure out a solution to Prokopenko, we'll figure out what to do with Kavinsky."

* * *

Ronan didn't like his worlds to mesh. Peas on one side, carrots on the other. Everything in nice, cordoned off sections where things could function fine by themselves and not bother anything else. His mother was one of those sections. Gansey was another. Kavinsky had been a third.

Ronan really, really wished there was more than one Cabeswater.

Aurora Lynch had been stuck in Cabeswater since the day her sons had brought her there. It hadn't been long after Kavinsky's Fourth of July party (and death but Ronan didn't want to associate more than necessary), which made it months now. Ronan and Matthew came to visit her. Declan, too, after Matthew blabbed his mouth off. The oldest Lynch brother's visits were infrequent. Cabeswater unsettled him, and he had never been the favored child. Declan was good about announcing his visits ahead of time, so Ronan never had to cross paths with his older brother unless he wanted to.

He was especially glad for that today.

Ronan picked at a scab on his arm, a long claw rake courtesy of Chainsaw. Normally, she was a graceful creature. Sometimes, though, she missed her footing. A few days back, she'd tried to land on his shoulder, overshot, and ended up tumbling down his arm, leaving a nasty scratch. Ronan didn't much mind. It gave him something to do.

Joseph Kavinsky, a dream creature taken from the insides of Ronan's mind, was talking to Ronan's mother, a woman Niall Lynch had dreamt. It was a surreal conversation. Almost as surreal as Prokopenko reenacting Sleeping Beauty in the back of Ronan's BMW.

If Noah were here, he'd make a comment about that.

How nice it must be to be a coward. Plead fear and you could detach yourself from all the nasty parts of life.

Ronan was no coward. Being fearless, it turned out, was a right pain in the ass.

He didn't want Kavinsky and his mother in the same place. He also didn't want to drop Prokopenko off with no warning or explanation. Personally, Ronan would be real fucking happy to drop Prokopenko in a ditch somewhere. Cabeswater didn't need that guy in it.

Temporary, Ronan reminded himself. All of this was temporary.

"I want to put him back," Kavinsky said and Aurora nodded like she understood.

"He will wake up first if you bring him here," she said. She hadn't protested when Ronan had explained things to her. Gansey's mother would have been too polite to do that. Aurora was simply too kind.

The trees rasped a whisper to Ronan. Cabeswater would take the boy.

"He won't want to stay here." Kavinsky looked around the clearing. It was beautiful, lush, and verdant. An oasis untouched for centuries until recently. "It's not his scene."

Kavinsky glanced at Ronan and away just as quickly.

Ronan couldn't begrudge Kavinsky Cabeswater. The dream place was Cabeswater. It had never belonged solely to Ronan.

He just needed to get the way Kavinsky had looked at Prokopenko out of his head.

* * *

They pulled Prokopenko's sleeping body out of the back of the BMW none too carefully and carried him over the border. Gansey wished Noah was there so he could have an excuse to drop him.

Noah had been laying low since the hospital. Gansey suspected he was avoiding getting chewed out by, oh, everyone. Ronan may have started this but Noah was showing a previously unknown talent for making every situation immeasurably worse.

They laid Prokopenko on the ground. He wasn't heavy. Gansey simply had no desire to carry him anymore. He pulled out a pocket-sized bottle of hand sanitizer from his shorts pocket and began liberally coating his palms with it.

Gansey offered the bottle to Blue. She gave him a look. Blue gave Gansey many looks, most disapproving or exasperated. Gansey rarely understood why. He pocketed the bottle.

Prokopenko's eyes fluttered open.

* * *

Kavinsky wasn't wrong about Cabeswater not being Prokopenko's "scene".

What Ronan hadn't realized when he and fake Kavinsky thought up this ridiculous scheme was that Ronan's mother had spent a considerable portion of her existence relatively alone. Niall Lynch had been known to disappear for months at a time, leaving his wife with only other dream creatures for company.

Prokopenko had never had that experience.

This was something that would become immensely obvious over the next few days. Right now, there were other problems.

"Get off of me. Who even are you?" Prokopenko snapped, shoving Kavinsky away from him. "Lynch. Where am I?"

Kavinsky looked wrecked, absolutely broken.

"You're still in Henrietta," Kavinsky assured him. "We're really not that far from school."

Prokopenko waved him off.

"Where's Joseph?"

"You were in an accident," Kavinsky said. "So was he." His eyes, wild and a little desperate behind his sunglasses, met Ronan's. "Lynch, talk to him. He'll listen to you."

Ronan looked at him. Didn't Prokopenko know he was a dream?

" _Lynch_ ," Kavinsky pleaded. It was a sound that should have never come from Kavinsky's mouth. His voice pitched low. "Talk to him. Let him know I'm not his dreamer, but I'm not going to leave him here forever. He's got to stay here. There's nowhere else."

Ronan could feel Gansey's and Blue's eyes on him. He looked at the pathetic creature polluting Cabeswater with his presence. Cabeswater wanted him. Cabeswater _welcomed_ him.

"Kavinsky's dead," Ronan told Prokopenko. "He's been dead for a couple months now."

"No, no, that can't be true." Prokopenko looked wildly from Ronan to Blue to Adam, his eyes sliding over Kavinsky. "No, no, no."

He slumped to the ground, clutching his head. He might have been crying.

Blue kneeled next to Prokopenko, reaching one arm out to comfort him. "Something happened with one of the fireworks. He wasn't able to get out of the way quick enough."

"Like I said, dead."

Blue shot Ronan a nasty look. He shrugged. She was the one making up stories.

"You have two choices," Ronan told Prokopenko. "You can leave and go back into a coma or you can stay here and stay awake."

* * *

"You know he killed himself, right?" Ronan hissed to Blue as they got back into the car. Prokopenko had decided to stay for a few days. Adam said Cabeswater wasn't rejecting him yet. Ronan, despite his disgust at Prokopenko being anywhere near Cabeswater, had to agree. He definitely did not want to take a comatose Prokopenko back with them.

"That's not something you just _tell_ people."

"Why not?"

Blue shook her head without answering.

Since Ronan really didn't care about her opinion right then, he didn't offer her a ride home. Instead, he climbed into his own car. Kavinsky was finishing a line off the back of his hand. Ronan, no stranger to self-medication, said nothing.

"What now?"

"We drive."

There was no one up for a race at two in the afternoon, so they cruised for a while. Ronan cranked up the stereo until the gearshift vibrated under his hand. Kavinsky, oddly still, stared out the window.

Ronan wanted to comfort him. He had no idea how.

"He'll come around."

"Not in the mood, Lynch."

"Just give him a few da-"

Kavinsky slammed his fist into the dash. His sunglasses slid down the length of his nose. His eyes were tinged red.

"Listen to me closely, princess, 'cause I don't want to say this twice. I'm not the real Kavinsky. I'm your shitty made in China knockoff version. You didn't take the time to put all the pieces together right." Kavinsky sighed and sunk back into the passenger seat. The anger seeped out of him. "I'm who you think I am. Was. The dream place, Cabeswater, they're the same to you. That makes them the same to me. It doesn't make me him."

It was a little too much self-awareness for Ronan right then.

Kavinsky sniffed hard. He looked so much like the boy Ronan had known, wanted, maybe even loved. It was too easy to forget, blur the lines a little and see someone Ronan knew was gone. Prokopenko, the real Prokopenko, rejected this Kavinsky. Ronan couldn't.

"So, funny thing: I can't kill myself."

" _What?_ " Blood roared in Ronan's ears. Kavinsky couldn't mean that.

"Right? I was thinking, hey, can't be that hard, already did it once, but it turns out your dream mojo won't let me do it. Goddamn, Lynch, I'm not even made in China, I'm made in China for Walmart customers.

"I'm not blaming you. It sounds that way, but I'm really not. This-" He gestured to himself, the bare shoulders, the dark jeans. "-isn't what you wanted, either."

"You're still alive," Ronan told him, turning down a side street. "As long as I breathe, you'll be here."

Kavinsky rubbed his full bottom lip.

"It's not enough."

They'd had a similar conversation months ago. Ronan hadn't been able to convince Kavinsky back then. He wanted to be angry now, to spit out all the shitty things Gansey had said to him when Gansey thought Ronan had tried to kill himself.

"I'll fix this," Ronan promised.

"How do you plan to do that?"

Ronan had no idea.

* * *

"Tell me," Adam said, trying to be patient, "about Cabeswater."

It was a fool's gambit to talk to Gwenllian alone. But Gansey could get nothing from her, Ronan and Noah were both a little sore about the whole possession thing, and Blue was being driven up a wall just living with her. The only person who had any real success with Gwenllian, according to Blue, was the Gray Man, but he wasn't here at the moment.

Gwenllian cackled, twirling around to face him.

"I do not like you, mongrel."

Adam grit his teeth. "I know. What do you know about Cabeswater?"

Adam had thought- he didn't know why- Cabeswater somehow protected the ley line. It was ancient, sentient, and immensely powerful. The ley line couldn't be awoken until someone, in this case Adam, joined with Cabeswater. He was its eyes and its body. He tended to the ley line.

Except Cabeswater had disappeared and the ley line, though weakened, had remained. By all logic, the ley line was the progenitor and Cabeswater the fruit. Persephone would have told him to think deeper, turn his mind elsewhere. Time was circular, winding, a Möbius strip twisting back on itself and sometimes not touching at all.

She had called Gwenllian a gifted psychic. Said she'd earn her keep in due time.

Adam was glad St. Agnes was nowhere near 300 Fox Way.

Gwenllian had told him he needed to ask Cabeswater. Their communication was rocky, the forest and him. It had improved in the last few months while he had done Cabeswater's work. But Cabeswater still only listened to Adam when he was in danger.

He tried to ask. Cabeswater, if it heard, didn't answer.

Which was why he was sitting in Blue's kitchen, asking a seer for something other than senseless answers.

What was he missing? What did he not understand?

What was Cabeswater?

"Nothing but a dream in a dream in a dream. They told me to dream. Sleep, daughter. Dream of war. Dream of fields slick with blood. I did not dream. I could not! For I was-"

"Awake, yeah, I _know_. What can you tell me about Cabeswater?"

"A thousand dreamers but only one dream. A thousand thieves but only one plunder." Her eyes glittered. A pencil slipped from her tangled hair and clattered to the floor. "A dream to mold! A dream to hold! In the cold, cold night, a dream to be told!"

She laughed and spun in a wild circle, before stopping abruptly in front of the refrigerator. She pulled out a jar of grainy mustard and a pudding cup. Blue, who had lingered in the doorway while Adam tried to pry answers from Gwenllian, turned away in disgust.

Blue pursed her lips. "You won't get anything else out of her today," she told Adam.

Gwenllian tilted her head back.

"Accompany me, little lily."

"Where are we going?"

"To my bedchambers." She curled her lip at Adam. Massive fingers flicked at him dismissively. "Be gone, mongrel." Blue mouthed an apology to Adam. "Come, blue lily-"

Blue groaned. "I know, I know."

"-lily blue."

* * *

Ronan was out of his depth.

Adam was waiting for him to get angry, to yell or punch something. It would be so much easier if he did. Ronan fought as easily as he breathed. It was when he was quiet, agreeable, caring that the world was off-kilter. That was how he was now, keeping to himself and trusting Adam to find a way to fix this mess with only two psychics and a deranged cave woman to guide him.

It was one more blow to Adam's self-worth. And when did he start letting Ronan of all people dictate that?

About the same time Kavinsky reappeared was when.

Jesus, he wanted Kavinsky gone. He hadn't liked the guy in life and now he couldn't stand him in death. He was smug, he was an asshole, and he'd somehow won Noah over to his side. And if Ronan's too understandable interest hurt, Noah's senseless one galled.

Right now, Kavinsky and Noah were holed up in Noah's room and it was obvious they were doing something. It couldn't be Kavinsky alone- the pounding bass wasn't shaking the walls. That in itself wasn't annoying. It was the exclusion that hurt.

Adam was here because Noah had lost babysitting rights and they couldn't very well lock Kavinsky up, no matter what Adam wanted.

Ronan was out and Gansey had gone to get Blue because Gansey was terrible at covering up whatever was going on between them. Adam was just paranoid enough to guess and too infatuated to ask, so he pretended their sneaking around wasn't the most obvious thing when Gansey came back smelling like her and mint chased Blue everywhere these days. Their secret was not twisting and insidious, burying under Adam's skin like the easy _thing_ between Ronan and dreamt Kavinsky, whose very existence was the echo of someone who had meant something.

An autumn wind gusted through invisible leaves on Adam's arms. Winter was approaching. Soon, leaves would begin to fall and carpet the ground.

Adam grimaced and pushed Cabeswater away. He would pull out the tarot deck later. Now he had other things to do. Adam focused his attention back on his homework.

A minute later, he had to stop again to beat Cabeswater back. Adam rubbed his eyes. He was so tired the bones in his face felt more real than his skin.

Noah's door opened. He slipped out as foreign music began pulsing through the warehouse once again. Adam could be at his apartment studying in the quiet, his good ear tuning out the shrill of the cicadas. Instead he was here, ruining what was left of his hearing and his soul.

He told Noah as much. Noah was as apologetic as usual, which was to say not at all.

Other than the thumping bass, the loft was an empty cavern. Even Chainsaw's scratching was absent. Ronan had taken her with him.

"Noah," Adam said, struggling to keep his voice level. "What did he say to you?"

Noah looked at Adam with creepily blank eyes.

"Why do you want to know?"

Adam's pencil lead snapped. He regretted it instantly, but Noah had already flinched.

"He wants to go back to Cabeswater."

"That's not happening." Cabeswater had no problem with Aurora or Prokopenko but it didn't like Kavinsky. The logic was fucked, since Prokopenko was more Kavinsky than the dreamt one but there it was. Privately, Adam thought Prokopenko was behind it but Adam didn't want Kavinsky there either, so the misunderstanding would stay.

"I didn't ask you to do anything about it. I was just telling you." Noah's fingers twitched. They were restless, always restless. "What are you working on?"

"Homework." Adam didn't mean to put such a hard edge on his voice but there it was all the same.

"Oh."

When he looked up again, Noah had vanished.

* * *

That night, Adam lined his bathroom sink with tinfoil and fell into a trance. He didn't meant to. All he wanted to do was communicate with Cabeswater and ask it to get rid of Kavinsky and Prokopenko. Simple, really.

Nothing with Cabeswater was ever simple.

Maybe because he'd been thinking about the problem all day, it took no effort to call up Cabeswater. Adam only had to think it and he knew the ley line was there, far underneath him, under foundations and centuries of dirt. It pulsed, a steady presence.

Adam was so tired. When was the last time he'd slept a full night?

No- he had to push those thoughts away. He needed Cabeswater to listen.

"I'm here," Adam said, feeling silly. Cabeswater knew he was there. They were connected now. Adam did not breathe without Cabeswater at the edge of his consciousness, threatening to take over. "I need your help."

There was no answer. Adam felt the night wind, cooled by the stream, move through the ancient trees. He saw Aurora Lynch asleep on the soft grass and Prokopenko awake not far away. An owl hooted in the distance. Water trickled in a stream full of fish. It was a beautiful, peaceful night.

The picture changed. The landscape grew older, wilder, more jagged. Adam saw people moving rocks and redirecting streams, coaxing the land into submission. Priests tending to the ley line for hundreds of thousands of years and it staying strong. The land softening and growing more familiar with time, becoming the rolling hills and mountain range Adam knew.

Strange, pale men coming from across the ocean bearing a burden, knowing of the ley line and seeking Cabeswater. Others had come before and failed in their quests. These might, too.

The priesthood dying out through plague and warfare. The people forgetting. The ley line falling into disrepair. Cabeswater weakening.

The images darkened and grew sinister.

There had always been thieves. Though no one tended the ley line, some realized they could use it. The entire world was filled with plunderers and very few priests. Faces flashed before Adam's inner vision, people of all origins and types. Adam recognized two: Joseph Kavinsky and a man who could only be Niall Lynch. He had the same dark hair as Declan, the Roman nose and perfect teeth of all his sons, and a dangerous air Ronan had inherited wholesale.

 _Plunderers_ , a bodiless voice hissed in Latin. _Thieves_.

None of it could help Adam. He needed Cabeswater to show him how to fix his problem, not distract him.

"Tell me how," Adam demanded. "I know you're listening. This is a two-way street. Help me like I help you."

Images crashed into him, trees and rocks, and unfamiliar places Adam felt drawn towards. An outcropping. A boulder. Blood. Ley lines spreading, crossing, stitching together at a dozen points. A primordial forest. A glade of stark beauty. Blood.

Cabeswater, Adam realized, didn't want him to do this.

Waist-high grass. Granite eroding and tumbling down a slope. A horizon of blue. Blood. An unused trail winding up a hillside.

But it would help him.

Blue.

Adam came to lying on his bathroom floor, drained and confused but for one thing:

He knew where he had to start.

* * *

The first floor of Monmouth belonged to a work of post-apocalyptic fiction. Overturned chairs and empty desks interspersed the room. Paper littered the floor, old trade secrets and scraps equally forgotten. Machinery lay formless under a thick blanket of dust. It was a long obsolete world kept artificially and unnecessarily in stasis, like a dusty museum piece no one bothered to visit.

Ronan flipped on the lights. Harsh buzzing filled the air for a moment until the fluorescents flickered to life.

He followed the newest set of footprints through the dust.

"Found me," Kavinsky said drily.

"What's my prize?" Ronan asked.

"An all-expenses paid vacation to Fuck You-ville courtesy of Who Gives A Shit."

"Always wanted to go there."

Kavinsky's laughter was the hollow sound of someone who didn't find much of anything funny anymore. It was different but only just from the laughter that had chased Ronan through the month of July.

Even in his dreams, Ronan couldn't fix what was broken.

He sat next to Kavinsky on a dusty bolt of fabric. The fluorescent lights cast a garish light on the room. A tattered sign urging worker safety was visible on the far wall. Dust lay thick on Ronan's tongue.

In the harsh light, the first floor looked different. It wasn't in stasis. It was a world slowly crumbling back to nothing like windows on old houses where the glass oozed downwards slower than molasses. No one saw it happening but it happened all the same.

Ronan sucked in a breath and let it out through his lips. "You really aren't him, are you?"

Kavinsky snorted and pulled the cigarette from his lips. "Took you long enough."

"How did you know?"

Kavinsky shrugged. "I just did. I had a feeling. When I went back home, I didn't recognize anything. I didn't remember half the texts on my phone. I thought, hey, maybe I have amnesia. Or I would have if I hadn't done the same fucking thing to my dad." He grinned at Ronan. "I wrote that shit down, Lynch, all about dreaming him up and how he suddenly got so forgetful. Prokopenko I was more careful with. That fucker was so obsessed with me he recorded everything." An inscrutable emotion flitted across his face and was as quickly gone. "Had this whole journal and shit. Turns out you didn't know me as well as you thought you did."

"I didn't mean to take you out of the dream."

"Yeah, yeah, the creepy one told me all about it. Said he didn't know you were having a wet dream till I showed up." Kavinsky paused to take a drag of his cigarette. "I told you not to wake up."

Ronan watched the smoke escape from Kavinsky's mouth. It curled into thin wisps before dissipating into the dusty air.

"Hey, by the way what's it like knowing your dad fucked himself? Does that make you, like, his mini-clone or something?"

"Fuck off."

"So how's fixing this shit going?" Kavinsky asked, flicking ash onto the ground. "I don't know about you, but I feel like I've been here long enough. Three and I aren't getting along so great, in case you didn't notice."

"And here I thought you were going to move in together."

"Already moved in. Think I'll complain to the landlord. Roommates are shit and there's no way a bathroom refrigerator's kosher." Kavinsky's smile didn't reach his eyes.

"I'll have you know I installed that refrigerator myself."

"Well, shit. And here I thought you didn't have any useful skills."

It was so easy, falling back into this banter with Kavinsky. This wasn't a dream. Kavinsky was here. He was _alive_.

But he didn't want to be. And he wasn't real.

How easy it was to forget. Ronan had grown up surrounded by dreams. Even when he realized his childhood home was impossible, he couldn't realize his family was, too.

"Just, promise me one thing, Lynch." Kavinsky ground his cigarette into the concrete floor. "Promise me you're gonna find a way to fix this."

Because Ronan couldn't admit to his dream he was a mistake, not just an accident but a horrible mistake, he said, "I promise."

* * *

"It's not working," Noah said.

"I know that," Adam snapped. He chewed his thumbnail. He was crouched in the tall grass, an array of Ronan's dream objects scattered around him. They had been at this for hours. The sun was starting to go down and it was getting cold.

"What am I doing wrong?" he muttered.

Noah shrugged.

"What does it feel like to you?" Adam asked, glancing up at the slouching figure.

"Like a clogged vacuum cleaner."

"That's what it feels like to me, too." Adam sighed and scrubbed his face with both hands. He stood up. "Help me pack this up. I want to get home before it gets too dark."

* * *

"You know I can't get anything from him," Calla said, looking pointedly at Ronan. He curled his lip at her. "He's the same as that raven of his."

"We're not asking you to," Gansey said. He handed her Prokopenko's hospital bracelet. "We're asking you to read _him_."

Ronan personally thought asking the psychics for help was a huge waste of everyone's time. But Gansey had wanted to come, as had Adam, and Blue already lived here, so. Ronan was here. Kavinsky was in the car.

Ronan was pretty sure he didn't know how to hotwire it.

Calla spent a long few seconds holding the hospital bracelet. She looked disturbed when she finally returned it.

"What is it you want from me?" she asked.

"How do we get rid of him?"

Calla scowled. "That's not something I can tell you."

"Should we ask Persephone?" Adam asked.

"No!" Calla said too quickly. "I'll ask her. You won't want the answer you get." She swallowed. Her brown face had turned grey. "Excuse me. I need to see to something." She stormed out of the room.

"What was that about?" Gansey asked Blue.

Blue shook her head. "Who knows what she saw. I thought she was our best chance, but I guess not."

"Little lily!"

"Oh, no," Blue groaned.

"Enter Gwenllian: stage left," Adam grumbled. Ronan approved.

Gwenllian had thrown her long, spider-like arms up to grasp the doorframe, making her seem even more massive than she already was. Gansey looked pleased to see her, which was to say he would prefer to be anywhere else. Ronan eschewed such manners.

"What do you want?" he asked.

Gwenllian snapped her teeth at him.

"Why," she said, in a tone that warned she was about to break into song, "I wish to help the princeling."

"Bullshit." Adam was Ronan's _favorite_.

"For the lily, then. Blue lily, lily blue. Such a little lily, yet blue all around." She sketched Blue's form with her hands.

"Yes, that's very helpful information," Ronan said. Adam snorted.

Gwenllian's eyes glittered. "Then I will tell you something you do not know. Cabeswater is the dream of a thousand dreamers, Greywarden."

"It's Greywaren," Ronan corrected.

Gwenllian acted like she hadn't heard him. She sang a ditty in what Ronan suspected was Early Modern Welsh. It sounded rude.

Gansey popped a mint leaf in his mouth and rolled it on his tongue. Ronan could have drowned in that scent. Prokopenko's chemical stench had seeped into the BMW's air conditioning.

Gwenllian's song ended.

"What happens to a dream when the dreamer dies? He knows." She pointed to Ronan.

"We all know," Adam snapped. Gansey gave him a sharp look.

Gwenllian nodded, only, because it was her, it looked like an attempt to puncture the nearest surface with her forehead.

"Yes, mongrel, but know you what happens when a dream dies?"

Another riddle. It wasn't even a good one.

"They die," Ronan answered. He'd buried two night horrors already. Hard to kill but otherwise wholly mortal. "That's it." He fixed her with a granite stare. "We're not killing anyone."

"We simply want to know if you know anything about Cabeswater. The cave you were buried in connects to a cave system there," Gansey said, his old money drawl in full force.

"'We want to know,"' Gwenllian mocked. "The young lord and his magi simply want to know. What is it, he asks, what can I make of it, he asks. Never, never, never thinks he, the answer lies not there."

"So you don't know."

"Know!" Gwenllian crowed. "Know!"

"SHUT UP!" Calla stood in the doorway. She had changed into an eye-searing, neon pink t-shirt and yoga pants. "Send her outside," she told Blue, who jumped up and hurried Gwenllian out of the kitchen.

"You should know better," she told the boys. "That woman won't tell you what you want to know willingly."

"What are you suggesting?"

"Me? Nothing." She busied herself making a cup of tea. Without turning around, she said, "Don't look at me like that. That woman may be insane, but she's smart and she's bored. She wants to toy with you."

"We need her."

"No," Calla said, pausing to take a sip of tea, "you don't. You're asking questions that don't need answering."

"How are we supposed to get rid of- return," Adam corrected, avoiding Gansey's gaze, "Kavinsky and Prokopenko if we don't know what we're working with?"

"Do you need to know what the ocean is to sail?" Blank faces. "Bad example. Your car. Do you need to know everything to drive?"

"If you want to fix it you do." Adam's tone was acerbic.

Calla clucked her tongue. "You're not putting an engine back together. You're adding a quart of oil."

* * *

"I thought you couldn't see into Cabeswater," Blue accused Calla when the boys had left.

"I never said I could."

"'You're adding a quart of oil'. That sounds an awful lot like you're talking about the corpse road."

"The corpse road, yes. Cabeswater, no."

Persephone floated into the kitchen. In her fine-boned hands, she held an empty glass teacup.

Persephone had always been the least practical and most spiritual of Blue's many caretakers. The roads she walked Blue couldn't even begin to follow. Blue was just a little jealous she had taken Adam on as a student. That jealousy was largely tempered by the fact that Adam, too, had begun walking strange and unnerving paths.

It only made sense that Blue, who had only ever had acquaintances, would finally make friends with the most unnatural boys she could find.

"People like us shouldn't fall in love, Blue. Nothing good comes from it."

Blue was keenly aware that "us", despite what psychics had been telling her her whole life, did not apply to her.

"I didn't know heartbreak was exclusive to psychics," Blue said wryly.

"You know that's not what I meant."

"What do you mean?"

"Maura. Your snake."

" _My_ snake?"

Calla narrowed her eyes at Blue. Blue quieted.

"When regular people fall in love, they do foolish things. When people like us do foolish things, we have the potential to do very foolish things. Like, say, disappearing into a place our friends can't see or making a living carbon copy of a dead person."

Blue was suddenly aware Calla was implying Ronan had been in love with Joseph Kavinsky.

"You're joking."

But of course Calla wasn't because being psychic meant knowing things that went unsaid whether you wanted to know them or not, and Blue, try as she might, could not find a reason to disbelieve.

Blue swore, not because of Kavinsky, despicable as he might have been, but because of all the things Ronan had ever omitted in the time she had known him. Persephone's eyebrows raised at Blue's words. Calla approved.

"As I said, people like us do very foolish things when they are in love."

Blue trembled. Her pulse threatened to leap out of her skin.

Ronan was an asshole, a shithead who was kept around because he wanted to be kept around. He was not someone Blue wanted to think of as kind or heartbroken, or an enigma.

Just like she hadn't wanted to think of Gansey as good or Adam as violent, or Noah as so very, very dead.

The truth, naturally, didn't much care what Blue wanted.

This was not her secret. It was Ronan's and Ronan's secrets ought to belong to Ronan, not Blue or her family. The more psychic elements might not have a choice about knowing but telling her-

Blue needed time to adjust because the more she thought about it the worse it got.

Ronan had watched Kavinsky die. They'd been friends or enemies or maybe both, and Ronan had watched him die. Blue had looked away, she hadn't wanted to see, but Ronan wouldn't have, he wasn't the type.

Had Ronan been grieving all this time? They'd all believed him when he said it was an accident. Why hadn't anyone thought to ask what Ronan was dreaming about in the first place? Had he been reliving July Fourth every night while Gansey and Blue slept and forgot?

Blue remembered the Barns. She remembered Ronan cradling a field mouse to his cheek with a gentleness that spoke of long practice.

Ronan Lynch had a heart. He had one. It was little and it was damaged, but it was there, underneath all those layers of Ronan bullshit, and none of them, the people who claimed to be his _friends_ , had noticed when another piece of that heart shattered.

Blue looked up. Calla and Persephone were watching her.

"You know what," Blue announced, pushing her chair back from the table. She didn't want to think about heartbreak or love anymore. Thirty minutes ago, Ronan, Gansey, and Adam had been in this room discussing how to get rid of a dream. That had been a safe, comfortably strange conversation. No one had wondered why the problem existed. It just had. "I've gone seventeen years without falling in love. I think I can go another seventy more."

"I'm afraid," Persephone said mournfully, "it's too late for that."

* * *

Gansey, it was agreed, would stay behind.

"Seven," Adam said by way of explanation, "is a bad number."

A lifetime of living with psychics had taught Blue that was a lie. If Gansey knew, he didn't protest. As they set out for the chosen place, Blue envied him.

The thing about being Blue Sargent was Blue Sargent, despite being best described as sensible and not psychic, got dragged into the strangest things. According to her family, she made things louder. According to her friends, she was the table everyone wanted at Starbucks. According to Gwenllian, she was a mirror.

Whatever she was, she was needed today. As a non-psychic in a family of psychics, it was a rare, precious feeling.

Adam had been working all week prepping this part of the ley line. First Noah and then Blue as well had trekked out here to watch Adam shuffle tarot cards and object after object disappear.

Adam wouldn't or couldn't explain what he was doing. Blue understood the concept: the ley line was the source of dream power. Dream objects were that power transformed. Adam was simply returning that power to the ley line. The problem was the ley line didn't naturally want to take the objects back. It had to be coerced.

That was what Blue had trouble understanding.

"The ley line has to be weak," Noah tried to explain. "It has to be a little desperate."

Which was why they were on a hillock in the middle of nowhere, halfway to West Virginia. Noah described the ley line as "sucky" in these parts.

Blue, of course, couldn't feel a thing.

"Calla wasn't right about the quart of oil," Adam added, eyes focused on the ground. He was digging a small trench to mark the spot they would be using. "But she gave me an idea. I move that-" He pointed at the small boulder to his right. "-and the ley line will get stronger. While it's surging, it'll create a sort of power vacuum. That's what'll take them back."

"There has to be a sacrifice," Noah said quietly. "Blood."

"Not that much." Adam shrugged. "Just a drop or two."

"Oh, nice," Blue said sarcastically. "Just a drop or two. Nothing big."

Adam looked up. His eyes glinted with something not fully human.

"There are worse sacrifices."

* * *

Aurora Lynch met her middle son at the border of Cabeswater. There wasn't a thing in the world that would tell an onlooker they were related. She was blonde, kind, sweet, and a touch sad. The sort of woman you couldn't believe really existed. He was all too real, sharp-edged and raw, with a carefully cultivated sense of danger about him.

"Come," Aurora said, gesturing to her son. She was careful to stay within the invisible limits of her prison.

The temperature increased noticeably as Ronan stepped over, turning the bitter fall on the other side to warm summer. Summer had always been Aurora's favorite season.

The trees whispered as Ronan passed by, welcoming him.

Aurora did not need to lead her son to Cabeswater's other occupant. Whereas Aurora stayed in the light, Prokopenko had breached the darkness of Cabeswater's trees.

Declan had once told Ronan their mother was nothing without their father. Until he had returned to the Barns a few months ago, Ronan had thought that had been a declaration of love. Declan had meant it more literally. Their mother was a dream creature, a figment of Niall Lynch's imagination brought to life. Under most circumstances, she could barely survive after his death. Ronan had brought her to Cabeswater, where she could be revived. Here she had flourished.

Prokopenko had not. The knowledge of Kavinsky's death had crushed him. Cabeswater was an exile, not a chance at a second life. Prokopenko, Aurora had said the last time Ronan visited, wanted to die.

Prokopenko sat hunched under an ancient poplar. Leaves littered not only the ground around him but his hair, his shoulders, even his legs. Pollen dusted the crown of his head and the tips of his prominent ears.

" _Non movet_ ," the trees whispered in Latin. _He does not move._ They cared about Prokopenko, as they cared about Aurora. Stolen treasures finally returned. Only these particular treasures would have preferred to stay with their thieves.

Prokopenko opened his eyes at Ronan's approach. The lines under his eyes were deep as valleys. This was a boy who wasn't simply tired but drained, devoid of whatever humanity he once had.

"We're leaving," Ronan said.

Prokopenko followed them to the border of Cabeswater, the invisible line where Aurora Lynch had first miraculously begun to stir. His breath misted in the cold air.

The BMW was parked a few feet from the border. Kavinsky leaned against it, waiting. He straightened when he saw them approach, making an aborted attempt to move forward. Prokopenko sucked in a breath and stood where he was. For a moment, their eyes met.

But it was only for a moment.

Prokopenko looked away first. His face was empty when he stepped over.

Then he slumped to the ground, unconscious.

* * *

"Are you sure this is going to work?" Ronan asked Adam. Their eyes tracked Kavinsky as he gathered Prokopenko into his arms.

Adam's mouth was a thin slash across his alien face.

"All the dream objects we tried went back. It's just a matter of whether the ley line will accept another dreamer's things or not."

Ronan hadn't wanted to give up Niall Lynch's dream creations and Adam hadn't asked. They had only used things Ronan had dreamt up. Belatedly, Ronan remembered there were things hidden in his room, Kavinsky's things, wristbands and fake IDs, they could have used. An invisible band squeezed around his heart when he thought of touching them again.

"Here?" Adam asked.

Noah nodded.

Kavinsky stood still, head tilted towards the sky, eyes closed. Prokopenko was lifeless except for the rise and fall of his chest.

Ronan chewed on his wristbands, eyes fixed on Adam and Noah. Adam had spread his tarot deck out on the sparse, yellowed grass. He was on his knees, hands hovering above the cards. Blue stood on one side of him, Noah on the other. Magician, ghost, and psychic's daughter. A triangle of power dedicated to fixing his messes. Didn't Ronan feel special.

A bitter wind blew through the clearing. Kavinsky huddled over his ugly burden.

Ronan could find another way. He would find one. Matthew was never going to know this fate. So help him, Ronan was going to keep Matthew from ever knowing just how fragile his existence was.

The wind was picking up, Virginia's predictably unpredictable weather making itself known. There was the promise of ice in the wind whipping through the trees.

"We're going to blow off this mountaintop if you don't get a move on, Parrish!" Ronan called, his voice distorted by the wind.

"Almost done!"

The trio muttered to each other. Then, Blue took out her switchblade and sliced her own thumb. Noah yelped and moved to stop her. Blue waved him off.

* * *

The blood welled up and slid unbearably hot down Blue's skin. Her hands felt frozen. She didn't remember giving so much energy to Noah.

Turning her thumb padside down, she pressed it to the dirt, ignoring the feel of grit pressing into the wound. Adam and Noah jerked back at the same time.

"That's enough," Adam said. "We just needed to prime it." His voice was far off, his eyes unfocused. Maybe Blue should have cut him.

Noah fussed over her cut, cleaning it out with an antiseptic wipe and wrapping it in a fresh bandage.

"It's _alive_ ," he whispered and giggled. He seemed unusually solid today.

Blue smiled at him.

Inwardly, she felt conflicted. Adam had drawn three cards: Judgement; the Four of Wands; and the Three of Swords. Blue worried over the last one. Adam had returned it to the deck quickly, while he had lingered over the other two.

It was probably nothing. Reading a tarot deck was a highly personal experience. An experienced tarot reader could have trouble reading a new deck, no matter that the cards had the same names. In theory, Blue knew what the cards meant. What Adam read in them could be vastly different.

"We're ready," Adam announced.

Blue wasn't needed any longer. She stepped back, expecting the other Kavinsky to step forward.

He didn't move. Well, forward. He certainly twitched and his fingers were in a constant array of motion. D _on't do drugs, kids. They're bad for you._

"I know I look like a genius, Parrish," Kavinsky said slowly, weighing the words in his mouth. "But you're going to have to show me what to do."

"Lay him on the ground," Adam said, placing his tarot deck back in its velvet bag and standing up. From the direction he was looking, he could have been talking to Noah just as easily as Kavinsky. "The ley line will take care of the rest."

Kavinsky placed Prokopenko on the ground.

Blue had never seen Ronan create a dream thing, but she had always figured it was somehow dramatic and in your face like Ronan himself. This wasn't. One minute, Prokopenko was there. The next he was gone.

Blue shivered.

"He's gone?"

"He's gone," Noah confirmed.

How Blue wished she could feel the ley line. She felt small and overlooked, something she associated all too well with Kavinsky. She had primed the ley line. She was the reason they could even get this to work. But it didn't matter.

Something in her fumed, wanting to say this was Kavinsky's fault, that it was his misogynistic ass making her feel like this. It wasn't. It was Adam conferring with Noah about things she couldn't understand, and Ronan keeping secrets, and Gansey being able to step away from things he didn't want to deal with, while Blue stayed to clean up the mess. It was being vital enough to come but not important enough to be asked.

"Your turn." Adam's voice was not kind. It wasn't cruel, either. It had a flat, disinterested tone that spoke of exhaustion and irritation at no specific thing.

Kavinsky was doing something funny with his lips. Blue realized he was chewing on the inside.

He wasn't really Kavinsky. Ronan had told them that. It had seemed obvious to Blue, but now she understood what he meant. This other Kavinsky was a memory. Only that memory had gaps and bits of Ronan had slid in to fill them.

"Can I just say something?"

He was looking at Ronan. Blue's stomach twisted.

* * *

"Can I just say something?"

Ronan's heart ached. There had been a time months ago when he had talked to a boy who wanted to die and he couldn't do anything to stop it. He hadn't known then what Kavinsky knew- that there really was no place for him, that you could turn dreams into reality but you couldn't make them real, that Matthew, Ronan's precious baby brother, was no different than a friend Kavinsky had dreamt up.

You could try all you wanted to make a person real but the cracks would always show. Whether you could live with that reality was up to you.

 _You don't have to go_ , Ronan wanted to say. _I can pretend. I've lived with dream creatures all my life._

 _Life isn't just sex and drugs and cars_ , he'd once said, trying to stop the inevitable.

 _Mine is_ , Kavinsky had answered with the surety of the damned.

Ronan had never been good at persuasion. He looked at his dream, his one, awful effort to recreate someone he'd lost, and knew he wouldn't try now.

Kavinsky tossed his shades to Ronan's feet.

"Souvenir. In case you feel lonely." He pulled Ronan's tank top off and dropped it on the ground. "Can't take what you didn't bring," he said by way of explanation. He took a step backwards towards where Prokopenko had disappeared.

"I really did like you, Lynch. The real me, I mean. Proko was so jealous. It'd been me and him for so long. It tore him up, knowing I saw it from his room." The corner of Kavinsky's mouth curved upwards ruefully. "Yeah, he was a good kid."

He began to fade, the ley line reabsorbing his energy.

"No more dreaming about me, fuckhead. I don't want to be back here in a month." _Move on_ , he didn't say but so clearly meant. _This isn't the way you do it._

If there was one thing Kavinsky had known, it was how to live life the way he wanted. He'd lived and died on his own terms. Ronan had brought him back and it hadn't changed a thing. A burden Ronan hadn't known he carried began to lighten.

Kavinsky was barely visible now. He tilted his head in Noah's direction.

"You ever think about leaving this mortal plane, ghost boy, I'll be there."

Noah smiled.

Kavinsky sketched a salute. Then he was gone.

* * *

"It's done," Adam said.

Gansey's sigh of relief echoed across the line.

Adam knew they'd made the right decision not letting Gansey come. Gansey liked all his things in a nice, neat row. Kavinsky, even dreamt Kavinsky, wasn't one of those things.

And he wasn't needed. Noah wasn't either but he'd been strangely insistent on coming and he was the only other one who could feel the ley line. Blue was there to amplify things. Ronan had come for his own reasons.

And now it was done.

Ronan drove off in his BMW. Adam suspected he was grieving in his own way. He only hoped Ronan wouldn't do anything too stupid. It was a long drive back to Henrietta.

They dropped Blue off at 300 Fox Way. Then Adam drove past Monmouth. Noah was silent. Adam kept driving until he reached the edge of town, then killed the engine.

They sat in silence for a few moments. Adam took it as a good sign Noah hadn't disappeared.

"So…you gonna tell me this secret of yours or what?"

Noah stared at him with round eyes. Deer caught in headlights looked less innocent.

"You know," Adam continued. "I don't think Ronan or Blue even noticed you sneaking around these past couple of weeks. Gansey hasn't wanted anything to do with this whole mess. But you, you were right in there the whole time. Which makes me think, what would make a dead guy so interested in someone he didn't even know?"

Noah shrugged.

"Noah."

He squirmed. Noah was weak in ways Adam knew all too well.

"You won't get mad, will you?" he asked plaintively.

"I can't promise that."

Noah considered Adam's words. He took a deep breath. "I can't normally see them."

"Who?" But Adam knew.

"Ghosts." Noah's hands fluttered at his sides. "He wasn't as strong as me. I think Ronan kept some of his things and they acted as an anchor for him. So I could only see him sometimes."

Noah paused. He hadn't said a name but Adam knew that, too. Kavinsky. The real one.

Noah continued. "He didn't think he had any unfinished business but then he found out what happened to his friend. So he came back."

"He came back?" Adam asked sharply.

"I guess. I don't- I'm not like them. I can't tell you what it's like. He came back or stayed or whatever, but he was too weak to do anything on his own."

"So he got you to do it for him."

Noah didn't say anything for a moment. His voice was small when he spoke again.

"It really was an accident. At first I thought he'd done something but then he showed up after the dream him appeared. There were two of them but they couldn't talk to each other."

Adam could connect the dots. Noah had inexplicably acted as an emissary between the dead and the living. He'd probably urged the fake Kavinsky on, which explained why he'd been so useless the last few weeks. Noah never had any intention of stopping Kavinsky.

"He took over near the end. He said Ronan messed up or something and the dream version of him was having some sort of existential crisis." Noah sobered. "I think he just wanted to be there when both of them had to go."

Adam remembered the way Kavinsky had held Prokopenko to him, surprisingly gentle. He'd ruffled Prokopenko's greasy hair and kissed his ugly forehead in a way that went beyond fondness. Probably, he had thought no one was watching.

His goal all along had been to get Prokopenko back. All the rest had just been waiting.

Adam tilted his head back and sighed. Noah could be so incredibly childlike in his naïveté. "He was waiting for an opportunity and you gave it to him."

Noah nibbled on the skin around his nails. His dark eyes shifted nervously.

"Christ, Noah, you played right into his hands."

"He didn't do anything wrong," Noah whined, shrinking in on himself. The two of them, they were like oil on pavement: an ugly stain that never mixed and would wash away when Gansey or Ronan came along. Adam didn't know why Noah aggravated him, only that he did.

Adam gave him a look. Noah shrank further into himself. You'd figure a dead kid would be less of a wuss.

A trickle of cold fear ran down Adam's spine. That was it, wasn't it? The feeling that Noah was the Aglionby version of him, unable to get past a set of nearly incomprehensible hang-ups. Only Adam knew his father's evil lived inside him. Who had it been for Noah?

Adam knew that answer, too.

Just like he knew he was angry getting rid of Whelk didn't fix Noah, and he was angry Noah never thanked him, and he was angry for wanting Noah to when all Adam did was let a man die because he couldn't hurt the one he wanted to. Adam, when it came down to it, was angry because, if Noah couldn't be so easily fixed, Adam couldn't be either.

"All he wanted to do was help his friend. There's nothing wrong with that." The defensiveness in Noah's voice jerked Adam out of his thoughts.

"No," Adam agreed. "There's nothing wrong with that."

"He was real once," Noah said. "Prokopenko. Then he died and Kavinsky couldn't take it. So he forged a copy."

Adam didn't know what to do with this information. He tried to imagine Prokopenko being a real person. It was easy. Prokopenko had been an Aglionby student, Kavinsky's lapdog, and little else. Adam had never doubted his realness. But he had never doubted Chainsaw's, either.

It was harder, really, to imagine Kavinsky caring enough to bring someone back to life. It was easier to think he'd dreamt Prokopenko just because he could.

"Do you believe that? I'm not sure I do." Noah's right hand moved in a complicated gesture. "You think he told me that so I'd help him." Adam made no effort to deny it. "You know what I think? I think he _was_ real and he _did_ die. I just don't think it's the way he told me." Noah's voice lowered to a whisper. "I think Kavinsky's dad killed him. And _that's_ why Kavinsky's real dad is sleeping with the fishes. Bada bing, bada boom."

Then Noah threw back his head and laughed. It was an eerie, inhuman sound. In that moment, Adam was intensely aware Noah was not among the living.

"You wouldn't have liked me when I was alive."

There was an emphasis there. Adam couldn't tell if it was on "you" or "me".

"You remember?" he asked Noah.

"Enough."

Adam, suddenly uncomfortable, stared out the window. Noah usually avoided talking about his former life.

"That's why."

"What?"

"That's why I helped him. Because of who I used to be. I wasn't a good person. I wasn't a bad person. It was like…I was nothing." Noah chewed his lip. He seemed to be rearranging something in his head. "He came to _me_. _I_ was the only one who could see him."

Blue would have told Noah he'd done a good job. Gansey would have said something pretentious and reassuring. Adam didn't know what Ronan would have done but, whatever it was, it would have made Noah feel better.

Adam was none of those people.

He drummed his fingers on his pants leg.

Adam didn't have it in him to be- be- What was the word for helping someone you didn't even like?

"Merciful," Noah said. "No, the other one. Compassionate. You are a little ruthless."

"Thanks," Adam said drily. "You know, I thought you didn't like dealing with death."

Noah shuddered. "I don't. This was different. They weren't alive. You can't die if you're not alive. That goes double if you never were."

It wasn't the worst argument Adam had ever heard.

It also, Adam was sure, wasn't the truth.

Adam knew things, things that could have been left alone. It was what happened when you poked and prodded because you weren't satisfied with the answers you had.

This is what Adam knew: almost eight years ago, an unremarkable Aglionby student disappeared. He had two parents and two sisters who all loved him very much and yet he vanished overnight. There was a small note in the local newspaper but only a cursory search. A friend said Czerny had gone to New York or San Diego, somewhere far away to pursue some dream or another. It was the kind of nonsense Henrietta would expect of an Aglionby boy. The kind of nonsense that said, _don't look for me, I'll slink back in six months when I run out of money._

A Mustang sat in a field for seven years untouched. Bones rested peacelessly near a ruined church people visited once a year.

No one knew to look, so no one did. After a while, no one remembered.

 _You wouldn't have liked me when I was alive._

How long until people forgot to visit Prokopenko? How long until he was nothing but a medical marvel, an unaging dreamer the likes of which only Henrietta's home nurses knew?

It was so easy to do for others what you weren't able to do for yourself.

The skin beneath Noah's eyes was dark, bruises on his pale face. Noah held Adam's gaze. He didn't blink.

"Are you going to tell Ronan?" Noah asked.

"Are you?" Adam had kept worse secrets.

"I don't think he wants to know."

No, Adam supposed, Ronan wouldn't.

They sat in silence.

Outside the car, mosquitoes buzzed in the humid air. The last summer fireflies glowed on and off. A red fox loped through the trees.

"Do you want to go to the gelato place?" Adam asked.

Noah smiled.

Adam started the car.

* * *

It took Ronan a week to return to normal. To Gansey's distress and Malory's discomfort, it was Noah and his insistence on playing Kavinsky's horrible music nonstop that got Ronan to finally vacate his room.

"Бела жига това сега си ти" had been reverberating through Monmouth for the umpteenth time when Ronan's door opened. Noah's head popped out of the fort he'd constructed for himself in a corner of the loft, then as quickly vanished. The music did not.

Ronan took a seat next to Gansey's bed, leaning his head on a corner of the box spring. It didn't look comfortable but people like Ronan weren't seduced by comfort.

"You look like hell," Gansey said by way of greeting. He was still in the process of repairing his miniature Henrietta. Recent events had halted reconstruction. The Dog lay on the floor a foot away, appraising Gansey's work. For a creature with no hands, he was highly critical of Gansey's progress.

Ronan grinned lazily. "Yeah? I just got back." He ran a hand along the bedframe. The metal made a dull _thunk_ when he tapped it. "How long has this been playing?"

Gansey pursed his lips. "Since I've been here? Hours. Noah's got it on a loop."

"I know this song."

"I bet you do," Gansey muttered. It was a cold, callous, _classless_ remark, the kind of thing his mother would rebuke him for if she were here. Thankfully, she was not. Not that that was a revelation. Her own constituents could not convince Gansey's mother to place one pedicured foot inside Monmouth Manufacturing.

"Gansey."

Gansey sighed. He applied glue to a strip of cardboard. The Dog squinted, dubious about Gansey's ability to fix City Hall's steps. "Ronan, this can't happen again."

"You don't have to worry about that."

It was a typical Ronan non-answer. Gansey leveled a gaze at his friend. Try as he might, he couldn't see anything malicious behind what Ronan wasn't saying. He let out another sigh.

Gansey's ears roared as Monmouth turned suddenly silent. The music had stopped.

Noah appeared sprawled comfortably across Gansey's bed. One second he wasn't there, then he was. If he realized teleportation wasn't a normal mode of transportation, he didn't show it.

"It's Nino's tonight," Noah said, planting his elbows on Ronan's shoulders. He clasped his hands over Ronan's chest and propped his chin up on Ronan's shaved head. It was hard to say what was more surprising: Noah using Ronan as a bodyrest or Ronan allowing it. "Adam'd miss you _terribly_ if you skipped again."

Ronan didn't miss a beat.

"It's been so long, Noah, I've forgotten what your favorite type of pizza is. Extra cheese? Anchovy?" A wicked grin blossomed on Ronan's face. He tilted his head up to look at Noah. "Or is it tuna you're after?"

Noah cackled. "I'll tell Blue you said that. She'd love an excuse to show you how they slice the Italian sausage. Nino's is very traditional. They still do it by hand. You should see the knife." He spread his hands wide in an approximation of Nino's utility knives.

Gansey relaxed. It was Nino's night. Ronan and Noah were up to their usual back-and-forth nonsense. In a half hour, they'd swing by St. Agnes to pick up Adam, then head over to Nino's. Blue would serve them iced tea and pizza. Ronan would say something rude, Blue would snarl, and everything would be like it always was. Tomorrow, Gansey would go back to fixing Henrietta and Ronan would go to church. No one would mention Ronan being weird or Kavinsky, or how the shadows under Adam's eyes never got any lighter.

"You coming?" Ronan asked, standing by the door. Noah was letting the Dog back into his old room.

In the fading light of an early fall sunset, Ronan was a solid presence. He didn't fade into the shadows like Noah did; he stood out, strong and vicious, and poised for a fight. He was a scorpion, a poison dart frog, a black mamba in human skin.

Best of all, he was Gansey's. He'd strayed for a bit but, in the end, he had returned. They were Ronan-and-Gansey, Gansey-and-Ronan. No one was going to come between that.

"Yeah," Gansey said. "I'm coming."


End file.
